Walk Through and Experience the Rich History of Ceramics With ‘Gateways’

You’re going to wish you saw this Instagram worthy art installation. Gateways (@Landofceramics) at the central fountain in Granary Square, King’s Cross closed this week. It was designed to celebrate the DesignJunction event (September 21-24) an interior design show by and for the industry, set in challenging industrial sites as part of the greater London Design Festival.

The installation is comprised of four bold and unique arches, each characterized by its own profile, patterns, and colors. The four-meter-high arches clad in vibrant and rich Turkish ceramic tiles designed by artist Adam Nathaniel Furman in collaboration with Turkishceramics. Each of the arches tells a different design story. First, the traditional Iznik Turkish patterns on the first gate reminiscent of paradise, the second of wood and stone play with the traditional materials of architecture and their contemporary new applications. The third gate is a funky throwback to the 70’s using bright colors and the tile common to public spaces. The final and fourth gate nods to the Edwardian utilitarian style, with black and white beveled tiles.

Furman describes the relevance of the materials used, “ […] ceramics have always been, and continue to be, both the most historic, resonant and traditional, as well as the freshest, perpetually surprising, delightful and exciting of architectural materials. There is no other architectural treatment that has remained as fresh, relevant and cool as ceramics has from a thousand years BC, right through into the 21st Century.”

Turkey has a long history of tile production, stemming from a long unbroken lineage of ceramic traditions. Furman reflects on the rich history of ceramics in architecture, “From the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, the Safavid facades of Isfahan’s Naqsh-e Jahan Square, and Sinan’s divine Ottoman mosques, to the maiolica cloisters of Santa Chiara in Naples, the gothic terracotta of the soaring Woolworth building in New York, and the famous red glazed ceramic Underground Stations of London […]”.

News via: The Design Junction.